Organized desk drawers make work life smoother and less stressful, but all too few people have them. Why don’t you? The good news is that organized desk drawers aren’t just for people who are naturally organized. Anyone willing to take a realistic look at what they need to store, and the space they have to do it in, can have organized desk drawers. No matter how messy your desk drawers are, these four steps will guide you through implementing and maintaining organized desk drawers that will keep things sleek and orderly with as little upkeep as possible.
Take Everything Out
First, take absolutely everything out of your desk drawers. From huge folders to tiny paperclips, it all has to come out. If you try to organize your desk drawers one item at a time, you’ll just end up repeating the jumble you’ve got right now, but if you start from square one with an empty drawer, you’ll have a chance to completely re-think the space. The only way to make organized drawers happen is to do a serious dump, so up-end the whole contents of your desk drawers onto your desk top, a table, or even the floor. Even the tiny crumpled post-its in the back of your drawers need to be out where you can see them. That way you’ll be able to make an accurate assessment of what your desk drawers hold, and be able to form a new perspective on how to use the space you’ve got.
Accept The Contents
One of the hurdles that stand in the way of organized desk drawers for many people is the idea that there’s a single “right” way that desk drawers should work. However, the organized desk drawers that stay orderly are the organized desk drawers that are built the way you’ll actually use them, so don’t feel like your desk drawers have to be one way or another in order to be “right.” The key to creating and maintaining organized desk drawers is to accept the truth of how you really use your drawers. Maybe you only need room for one pencil, but you’d actually use a whole half-drawer full of extra batteries for your camera. Maybe instead of cramming everything into your desk drawers, you’d rather keep your address book on your desk, and have plenty of space in your drawer for magazines. The only organized desk drawers that are “right” are the ones that can contain the objects you really need in a way that lets you easily see and retrieve them. Organized desk drawers can hold the expected (office supplies, files) or the unexpected (hot sauce, books of poetry), but if they are set up to hold what they “should” hold instead of what you really need them to hold, your desk drawers won’t stay organized for very long. Look at the pile of what was in your drawers, assess what’s really in that pile, and instead of judging yourself and your habits, accept the truth about what you really keep in your desk drawers, and get ready to plan how to make space for all that stuff.
Create Sleek, Inviting Spaces
Start with a utilitarian attitude, and decide what objects you’ll need constant access to. These should be in the front of the drawers so that it is easy to grab them or put them away in a matter of seconds. Then, chart out which objects you often use in conjunction with each other, and put those side by side (put staples by your stapler, aspirin by your band-aids, etc.). Once you’ve got your idea floor plan laid out, it’s time to make it a little more permanent. Now that you know what you’ll need to keep in your organized desk drawers, it’s time to get to the creative part: making inviting, permanent, designated spaces for the objects you need to store. The more appealing your organized desk drawers are when they’re neat, the more motivated you’ll be to keep them in good condition, so it’s worthwhile to put a little bit of attention into the form as well as the function. You can use purchased “organizers” to break up the drawer space into sections, or rig up your own customized dividers with cardboard and scotch tape. You can get all sorts of little boxes and trays at an office superstore, but whatever looks good to you is what you’ll be most likely to use, so don’t shy away from keeping small objects like paperclips in unusual materials like tupperware, thoroughly cleaned tuna fish cans, or anything else that strike your fancy.
Keeping It Up
Try to work so throughly that your organized desk drawers will have a permanent, designated place for everything that you dumped out of them, or at least for every “kind” of thing, from rumpled paper scraps to your leather-bound designer day planner. That way, your organized desk drawers will stay organized with as little upkeep and effort as humanly possible! Once you have an appealing, appropriate place for everything in your organized desk drawers, it will be easy to make sure that everything ends up in its place.
